


The Girl Who Couldn't Stay Alive

by dramaturgicallycorrect



Category: Doctor Who (2005), Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Gen, The Reichenbach Fall, Who!lock, Wholock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-08
Updated: 2013-02-08
Packaged: 2017-11-28 14:27:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/675420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dramaturgicallycorrect/pseuds/dramaturgicallycorrect
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor seeks out Sherlock Holmes's help to find Clara Oswin Oswald, who he has failed to save five times now. Wracked with guilt over watching her die five times, the Doctor plans to search the Universe for her again, but is shocked to find she is not only in London at this very moment but also an acquaintance of John Watson. The Doctor must find a way to save her this time, at the very least for John's sake. </p><p>Based on this tumblr post by someone else: http://wickershire.tumblr.com/post/40203872823/sonicboomerang-wholock-au-the-doctor-seeks-an<br/>And this one by me: http://wickershire.tumblr.com/post/38839943440/i-had-the-most-terrible-yet-intriguing-thought</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Girl Who Couldn't Stay Alive

John wasn't happy. But he wasn't so sad either. He wasn't quite feeling indifferent either, maybe just passive. In any case, numbness was a relief from pain. He smiled this morning. Because of a text.

Everybody knew not to text him. Even the smallest things like texts turned his stomach in circles. Not that anybody but Harry or the clinic had had anything to say to him. It was easier to hide, so he did. He was particularly gifted at hiding and planned to do so for as long as humanly possible.

That is, until Clara Oswin Oswald happened to him.

\--

The Doctor wasn’t happy. He stood alone in the rain in front of an apartment which housed the solution to the Doctor’s biggest problem. Somehow he couldn’t bring himself to press the buzzer. He was losing the staring contest with the small, seemingly innocuous button when the black door opened. On the other side of it stood an impatient Sherlock Holmes, dressed in his pajamas.

“I was getting impatient,” he announced, though aware of the futility of stating the obvious. “You really should get your brakes looked at. Mycroft and half of UNIT are probably on their way. I shall have to move. Again.” Sherlock turned from the doorway and climbed the stairs up to his apartment. The Doctor invited himself in.

Once settled into the room, the Doctor couldn’t bring himself to move to his pressing issue. He stalled shamelessly. “You’ve one of the most recognizable faces in all of England and you’re holed up in the middle of bloody Piccadilly Square. Doesn’t say much to flying under the radar.”

“You certainly know very well that when one puts one’s mind to it, being a chameleon is not particularly difficult.”

The Doctor grunted in the affirmative. He stood and paced again.

“I hear you’re impersonating me again.” Sherlock seemed anxious to turn the subject his current situation.

“Doyle’s version of you. There’s a difference.”

Sherlock instantly regretted his change of subject. He knew better than to further broach the subject of one Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a little-known writer of the 19th century whose run-ins with the Doctor inspired him to know the name. Sherlock did not appreciate the reference. John used to think it was hilarious. Neither of them knew the full details of Doyle’s interaction with the Doctor or what the Doctor may have shared about their lives. Either way, if anyone found Doyle’s stories, it would certainly make life a little more hellish for John Watson, who still battled daily the accusations of fraud. Mycroft certainly had a hell of a time collecting up all of the new copies of his works which seem to appear every time the Doctor impersonated Sherlock Holmes. If ever Sherlock might have felt the tiniest amount of gratitude toward Mycroft, it would be for this reason. For the mercy he showed John in sparing him humiliation.

Sherlock’s face got a little hot when the Doctor continued.

“Besides I’m not the only one that’s been up to something. Faking your own death?” The Doctor wasn’t so easily steered as Sherlock hoped. Sherlock rolled his eyes again. “How’s John taking it?” The Doctor sat down across from Sherlock. The Doctor felt not a little guilty for not visiting John since the fall, but the Doctor couldn’t bear to lie to John. He meddled too often to terrible consequences not to abide by Sherlock’s decision.

“Strong and silent as ever. He’s found a distraction. A hobby. Just a few months ago.”

“A hobby?” The Doctor looked skeptical.

“I suppose others may call her a friend.”

The Doctor felt a little relieved. “What’s her name?”

“I don’t know,” Sherlock said dismissively. The Doctor laughed. “I’ve made an effort not to find out, Doctor.”

“Surely it’s something the great Sherlock Holmes could have deduced from a single glance. I am aghast and awash with disappointment.”

“I’m learning to respect.”

The Doctor accepted this as Sherlock pointed his hands in his customary pensive position and laid his lips to them. The Doctor surveyed his somber companion and regretted again his decision to include Sherlock in his plans. But if there was anyone in the galaxy who could solve this mystery…

“Why are you really here, Doctor? Who are you looking for? Well, I suppose I know that, I’ve heard things. More accurately, I would say, why are you looking for someone?”

“Mycroft,” the Doctor posited.

“Mycroft,” Sherlock confirmed.

In a fit of frustration--and perhaps a little desperation--the Doctor _borrowed_ access to Mycroft’s computer through the TARDIS mainframe to take a look around. For her. He was shut out fairly quickly, which prompted a phone call from Mycroft to firmly remind the Doctor to mind his own business.

“There’s a particular look of distress he has reserved for you, not unlike the look her has reserved for me. Who is she? Clara Oswin Oswald?”

The sound of her named voice aloud hit Doctor with a fresh wave of grief. He slowly eased the tale from his lips, choosing his words deliberately, as though her story was sacred. In a way, it was. The girl who couldn’t stay alive.

The Doctor had searched for her, everywhere, every when. He had found her twice by unhappy cosmic accidents. Unhappy cosmic accidents made up most of the Doctor’s life those days. After that he spent his days looking everywhere, with whatever information the TARDIS could provide him. He found her three more times. She died three more times. In his arms, in flames, and deleted. Every time he was a few precious moments too late. Every time he choked back tears. Every time he thought maybe it was his fault.

Wherever Clara Oswin Oswald found herself in the universe, she was in danger. Right at the same age, in the same time in her life, she was fixed to die. But something was bringing her back again. Not in the way that Rory seemed to live and die. Every time was a fresh start. The Doctor wondered whether that was a curse or a blessing for her.

He needed help, though he wasn’t sure how much he could get. Sherlock Holmes, one of the greatest minds in all of time and space, in league with the Doctor, who fit the same description. Together, he hoped, they could solve the anomaly of the girl who couldn’t stay alive. And maybe they could change her fate.

Sherlock, it turned out, didn’t need much convincing. It was a mystery and an adventure and he was positively desperate for the distraction. What a relief to find something worthy enough to get dressed for.

\--

John Watson seriously considered moving from 221B Baker Street following the fall. It had quickly become one of the most recognizable addresses in London, certainly ahead of less important addresses like 10 Downing. But it was his home, and there was something to be said about homes. John hadn’t had a home in years, certainly not since his time before university.

On some small yet highly irrational level, John stayed behind because it was the easiest way Sherlock could find him. Should he need to.

Irrational. He knew that.

He certainly wasn’t ready for Os, who had an inexplicable ability to insert herself into people’s lives without necessarily asking. A few months ago, John had made a rare trip outside to a café three streets down from Baker. Os was working as a waitress, who John greeted with customary passing politeness. She was odd in that she sat at the table with him instead of standing over him. John wasn’t sure which method of service he preferred. She talked familiarly but not patronizingly. She didn’t call him honey or sweetie or sweetheart or darling or love. This would not irk ordinary people. But John was no longer allowed to be ordinary. His face was in the papers and on the news. He was rarely the object of ridicule (but that did happen) and was more the object of condescension or pity. He had been swindled by Sherlock Holmes.

The café was empty so Os seemed to spend more time at John’s table than she did cleaning off other tables or doing whatever waitressy things she was responsible for. She started off their conversation complaining about how terrible she was at peeling oranges. John didn’t have any tips for her. When she brought his food, she brought with her four oranges. His fish sat cold and abandoned.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, winking at him as he left the café. John chuckled to himself.

She was right. She saw him the next day. And the next. He was coming three or four times a week for three weeks until they finally began to meet up outside of the café. They had spent two months together so far and he wasn’t clear on how to define their relationship. He never felt suspicious of her, like he did with most people who tried to get close to him. He had run off a reporter or two in the time since the fall, which caused him to become essentially a shut in.

Somehow Os was able to make John feel. Which probably would have terrified him, if she didn’t exude a contagious calm. If Os was at all frustrated by the lack of definition in their relationship, she never showed it. She never asked him for anything, she never pushed him for anything. He told her about the fall in his own time, when he could articulate. She never said whether she believed him and he never asked.  She had a knack for showing up on the bad days, even though he would never dream of calling her.

“Chin up, soldier boy,” she said on one of his darkest nights. She laid across the couch with her head in his lap. She always sat on the couch, as if she knew Sherlock’s chair wasn’t sat in.

“Soldier boy? Like pah rum pum pum pum?”

“That’s drummer boy, do keep up.” She sighed calmly and looked up at him. “I don’t know what you keep looking for inside yourself, but I can guarantee you, it’s not there.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Because when part of you is missing, you can’t find it in the place where it belongs.”

In another time or in another place, he felt like he might have loved her. But then he thought that might be some sort of Florence Nightengale Syndrome. She helped him in a way that his therapist never could. She understood death; she spoke about grief and loss with an authority beyond her years. Sometimes it felt like she owned death. John certainly knew enough of death from the war and he didn’t fear it. He never feared it, but it took knowing Sherlock Holmes to get beyond wishing for it.

John never asked her why she came and refused to leave. She knew when she was needed and he had a feeling she would disappear when she wasn’t. She never felt permanent to him, which was probably about all that John could handle at this point. John couldn’t get attached. Not when he was already smiling when she sent him a text.

\--

Os was due to Baker Street fifteen minutes ago. She stood instead on the edge and waited. She breathed evenly and she didn’t worry. She didn’t worry about John and she didn’t worry about herself. She did as she was told. She read aloud.

“‘He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them. He does little himself. He only plans…’”

\--

“That’ll be Mycroft,” Sherlock shouted in the general direction of the living room as he put on his coat. He walked out and into the bathroom as the Doctor’s phone began to ring. The Doctor rolled his eyes.

“Colin’s Banana Emporium, Colin speaking,” the Doctor answered.

“You really should get your brakes looked at,” Mycroft replied. The Doctor smiled. “You’ll want to leave this one alone, Doctor.”

“Come now, you know that’s not really my style. I’m definitely more of a poke at it until I get a response kind of man.”

“Ah well. There was no harm in floating the idea by you. What’s your interest in Clara Oswin Oswald?”

“No, Mycroft, I ask the questions around here.”

Mycroft sucked in a long breath. “Ask.”

“Is there still a hidden swimming pool under the dining room of 10 Downing?”

“Goodbye, Doctor.”

“All right, all right. I’ll talk. But I want the record to reflect it’s of my own volition and not because you’re scary.”

“There is no record.”

“Of course there’s a record. There’s always a record.”

“What is your interest in this girl?”

“She saved my life. I’m trying to return the favor. But I keep losing her.”

“Perhaps you could try putting a shock collar on her? She may stop running away from home.”

“Both of us can’t be sassy, that’s not fair.”

Mycroft paused for a moment. “She’s here, Doctor. And she’s with John.”

“What does that mean?”

“She spends a considerable amount of time with John Watson. Doctor, what do you have planned?”

The Doctor was silent as he considered the unhappy cosmic accident. He hung up the phone and turned to Sherlock, who was putting in the bathroom putting contacts in his eyes.

“You’re not going,” the Doctor wanted to call out to him. He stood instead in the living room, he spun around in slow circles, working out the possible courses of action in his head. None of them ended happily. For the Doctor, for John, for Sherlock, and for Clara Oswin Oswald.

Adjusting his wig just a little, Sherlock walked into the living room. He walked over to the stand by his chair and opened the drawer.

“No,” the Doctor said. Sherlock hesitated and stared down at his small black case, which contained small bags and tools and needles, which were the only distraction from the complete boredom he felt since the fall. “That stays here. I won’t have that. I’ve told you before.”

Sherlock straightened his back. “I don’t need it.” He took the case out and tossed it swiftly into the trash.

“You have the game,” the Doctor said.

Sherlock nodded and put on his coat. He had the game.

\--

The door buzzer finally rang. John all but leapt out of his seat to trot down the stairs to the door. When he opened the door, he was not greeted with Os’s smiling face, as was the custom. Nobody was at the door. John craned his neck out the window and saw nobody in the vicinity of the door. He was closing the door when he heard the sounds that stopped his heart for what felt like minutes.

Seemingly innocuous to anybody else, the uptempo sounds of the Beegee’s “Stayin’ Alive” scared him in a way that memories of the war never did. He picked up the buzzing, singing mobile phone from the doorstep and clicked a button to open a text.

_No games this time. You owe me a fall._

John was bewildered by the message, but was struck by the use of “fall.” He always used the word fall. He couldn’t say jump. Because he would never have jumped. He used it privately. If he ever talked to Os about Sherlock, it was always the fall.

In that instant the seeds of doubt began to grow in John’s mind. It had all been a game, contrary to what the text said. Os took him in and now she had to torture him. He tried to dissuade himself from thinking Os had sent the text. But he kept looking at that word.

Fall. You owe me a fall.

None of the papers used the word fall. Fake Genius Jumps to Death. Leaps. Plummets. Never falls. There was always intent.

The phone came alive to “Stayin’ Alive” again in his hand.

 _Come and find me, Soldier Boy_.

John dropped the phone. He had been an idiot. He had always been an idiot.

\--

As the Doctor predicted, Sherlock immediately figured out where the Doctor was leading him. They were on foot, because the Doctor didn’t fancy cabs and Sherlock didn’t fancy the TARDIS.

“Stop,” Sherlock called out to the Doctor, who had gotten ahead of him. “No. I told you about respect.”

“She’s his hobby, Sherlock. She’s the girl. Maybe not now, but soon she’ll be in danger, which could put John in danger. The universe has put her there. For us. All of time and space, it knew we would come for her and it left her with John for us.”

“Impossible.”

“No such thing.”

“Improbable.”

“That’s more like it. It’ll be easier if you’re there. You can talk to her, size her up. It’ll be easier than going through the middle man. We can find out if she’s in any immediate danger.”

“Not yet.”

“There’s no point hiding if you’re going to keep yourself within arm’s reach. Just go see him. You’re being a child.”

“No. You don’t get to say that, Doctor. I made the most logical decision given the circumstances I was placed in. I did not have the luxury of soliciting your assistance. You know the consequences of your own actions. You fear you put this woman into danger simply by showing up on the same planet as her. It could be you, Doctor, you could be killing her. You’re more certain you’re _risking_ her life by trying to save it. You’re lying to yourself and you’re lying to me. How very pedestrian. Don’t pretend like this adventure is wholly academic. I don’t get to question your motives and your decisions, even if they are born from the irrationalities of your emotions concerning this stranger. My motives are clear. My decisions are final. My conscience, if I ever had one, remains clean. You’ll know where to find me when you have answers.” Sherlock took off back in the direction of his apartment.

“Sher--” the Doctor began to shout but stopped himself. He sighed deeply and continued his walk toward Baker Street. Nobody answered the door when he rang several times. He sonic’d the door swiftly and let himself in.

“John? Mrs. Hudson?” he called out even though he was sure the place was empty. He gave the hallway a good sonic-ing just in case. The sonic picked something up on the ground. He twirled around and caught sight of a phone sitting discarded by the hallway desk. He picked it up and looked through it. Empty contacts, no previous calls. Two text messages. The Doctor frowned. He could already be too late. He pocketed the strange mobile and pulled out his own. John’s number rang once and then went straight to voice mail.

“Bloody humans, obsessed with these bloody things unless you actually have to reach them,” the Doctor shouted to no one.

He thought briefly about phoning Sherlock as he ran from Baker Street but didn’t follow through. He justified it by convincing himself there was no time. But to have come all this way for Sherlock’s help and to have it thrown back in his face. The Doctor felt a little irritated.

\--

Sherlock was greeted at his apartment by a small piece of paper attached to his door by a small knife. Subtle. He put his gloves back on and removed the knife and paper. It was a title page.

The Final Problem

A Sherlock Holmes Mystery

By Arthur Conan Doyle

Sherlock was familiar with all of the Doyle stories and had not heard of it. He turned the page around. A cramped handwritten note: _You owe me a fall._

Sherlock stared at the note. He was jolted. He pocketed the knife and the paper and ran out the front door of his apartment.

\--

John realized it might be childish of him to hide from Os when he should have just confronted her. He was a soldier, for Christ’s sakes. He could probably take her. Instead he hid away in a tiny restaurant he’d never been in before. He was screening his phone calls. Well, his one phone call. From the Doctor, no less. John wasn’t in the mood for whatever adventure the Doctor was on. Where had he been since Sherlock…?

He stirred his tea far more than was necessary to mix the contents. He wasn’t thirsty or hungry anyway. As he stirred, he grew angrier. He certainly preferred anger over embarrassment. John resolved to let Os know exactly what he thought of her if she ever tried to reach out to him again.

And just then she reached out to him again. His mobile lit up and buzzed; she was calling from her own number and not a restricted number this time.

“I don’t know what the bloody hell you think you’re playing at, but you’re--” John couldn’t find the appropriate word to display his disgust.

“John, he wants me to let you know that he doesn’t appreciate that you threw his phone away, but he’s happy that he scared you. He laughed. He has me. I’m not afraid, John. Don’t worry,” said Os, her voice weak and hoarse but calm.

“Os, what are you talking about?” John’s heart began to race.

“He’ll wait for you to get here. But he says tick tock goes the Reichen-clock.”

“Who? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know who he is, John. But he has terrible taste in puns.”

The line went dead. John leapt up from his seat and bolted from the small café.

\--

From the street, the Doctor couldn’t see anyone standing on the edge of the roof at St. Bart’s Hospital. Still he raced up the stairs, grabbing as many as four steps at a time, all the way up to the roof. It was deserted. The Doctor felt a second of relief, followed by a flash of fear. He had bet on the wrong building. The stranger’s phone began to ring in his coat pocket.

_Winter, Spring, Summer, or Fall_

_All you got to do is call_

_And I’ll be there, yes I will_

_You’ve got a friend._

“That’s not very fair of you, leaving misleading texts like that. Where are they?” the Doctor said.

“He wants to know who this is,” answered the voice of Clara Oswin Oswald.

“Clara? Oswin? Are you hurt?”

“He says he’s asked nicely and he won’t ask again.”

“You can tell him I’m the Doctor. I promise you--and when I make this promise, I will follow through--I will find you and you will pay.”

“He says it’s time. Tell John to remember--” She was cut off and a dial tone sounded in the Doctor’s ear.

“No,” he said into the phone, as if commanding it to reconnect the call.

He stared out at the street and saw no one below, scanned the buildings to the sides of him and saw no one. The door to the roof slammed open and the Doctor turned, ready for a fight. It was Sherlock, out of breath. He ran forward and pointed behind the Doctor. “Doctor!” he shouted his warning.

The Doctor turned and saw her as she fell from the office building across the street, whose roof was higher than St. Barts. How it had never occurred to him to look up. She fell and landed ugly. The Doctor tried not to watch, but in those moments as he fell, all of the air left his body.

No. No. No. No. It wasn’t supposed to end this way.

Pedestrians below began to scream at the sight. The Doctor was paralyzed at the edge of the roof, staring down at the crowd that began to build up. Sherlock stood a few feet behind him; he was determined not to look down from that edge again. He squatted down and placed his steepled fingers to his lips.

“Doctor!” shouted a voice from the street. “You fix this! You come down here, you fix this!”

Sherlock knew it was John’s voice. He knew his friend had been led again to bear witness. He closed his eyes. The Doctor said nothing, but stormed away from the edge and back towards the stairs. Sherlock did not follow.

\--

John cried. He didn’t usually cry, but this time he cried harder than any time he could remember in his life. It wasn’t that Os was more important than anything else in his life, because she wasn’t. But her fall broke whatever it was that was holding John together. There was nothing stalwart left, no military training that he could utilize. John was simply broken, in that moment, kneeling for the second time over the broken body of a friend. He shouted, but it did no good. What help was there left for Os? Or for John? The doctors and nurses didn’t flood the scene quite as quickly as the last time. He had a few seconds with Os, but he couldn’t think of anything to do. He reached over and took her pulse. He didn’t know why he did that.

The Doctor put his hand on John’s shoulder, but John wouldn’t look up. The Doctor pressed a little firmer and did what he could to get John to stand up. John sat still until the medical team had put Os on a stretcher and carried her into the hospital. They placed a sheet over her. Even then, John could have stayed. He had given up.

The Doctor grabbed John and began to push him in the direction of Baker Street. John was in a daze, stumbling along with the Doctor’s arm supporting him. The Doctor may have been crying or talking to him, but John didn’t care to notice.

Before he knew it, he was seated in his chair in his living room.

“You fix this,” he said softly.

“You know I can’t.”

“Get in your box. Fix it. Bring him back.”

“I can’t bring either of them back, John.”

“Then what fucking good are you?”

The Doctor let that hang in the air. He asked himself that question often. Slowly he tried to coax Os’s story out of John. He had to know the context of this Clara Oswin Oswald’s death. John held it in for a while before it all spilled out of him. He wasn’t sure if any of it made sense to anyone else, but the Doctor seemed to follow easy enough.

“I will find him, John.” The Doctor got up to leave.

“How did you know?”

“What?”

“How did you know to be there?”

The Doctor pulled out the stranger’s mobile and showed it to John.

“She was a good person, Doctor.”

“I know.” The Doctor knew too well. He still wasn’t sure about telling John. The Doctor was keeping a lot of secrets. He walked downstairs and left a note for Mrs. Hudson on the table by the door. Hopefully she would call the Doctor to check in later.

The Doctor returned to the TARDIS to get to work on tracking down Os’s kidnapper. His only lead was the mobile, but he doubted he could get much from it. Especially if it came from Moriarty, and all the signs pointed that way.

He pushed the TARDIS doors open and found Sherlock sitting in his chair. He was out of his disguise and observing the movements in the console.

“How did you get in here? The door is locked.”

“I pushed to open. Wasn’t locked.” Sherlock removed the knife from his pocket. The Doctor stared. “This was stuck to my door.” Sherlock also produced the page. “Which one is the Final Problem? I’ve read all of them and I’ve not read the Final Problem, Doctor.”

“I don’t know it.” The Doctor took the page from him and looked it over.

“The TARDIS does.” He pressed a few buttons. The story displayed on a screen and the Doctor scanned it. His face fell. Sherlock’s voice deepened. “What did you tell Doyle about Moriarty?”

“Nothing.”

“What did you tell Doyle about Moriarty?”

“Did I stutter, Sherlock?” The Doctor pressed a few buttons on the console and the story went away. “There’s no possible way he could have known about that.” He typed away and pulled up some more information.

“How does this show up on my door, Doctor? How does he lead Oswald to the roof? How does he know where to find me?”

“Valid questions.”

“This can’t happen, Doctor. John is to be left alone. I made that very clear.”

“We’ll find him.”

“He’s sloppy.” Sherlock pressed a few buttons on the console. An eBay purchase made for an antique copy of the Doyle stories, shipped from America to London just a few days ago. Shipped to a man called Sebastian Moran. “The page was easily 100 years old, first printing I would say.”

The Doctor wrote down the address. It wasn’t far. “Come along, Sherlock.”

“I’m staying here.”

The Doctor and Sherlock traded a silent argument through looks. “Fine,” the Doctor said, disgusted. He stormed out of the TARDIS and slammed the door. “Sorry,” he said to her. “It’s just Sherlock, you know?”

\--

The Doctor sprinted to the address. It was an apartment complex, doors were bypassed easily. The apartment was empty. The Doctor looked around for signs of life or indications of where the man called Sebastian Moran might be. The Doctor’s phone rang.

“Note pad on the desk in the living room,” Sherlock said on the other end.

The Doctor rolled his eyes, grabbed a pencil, and shaded the page lightly. He could read the last thing written on the sheet of paper before this one. Another address, considerably farther away. No further information. He read the address aloud to Sherlock, who pulled up the quickest way to get there. The Doctor’s mind raced with possibilities. Could be a trap?

“He’s not smart enough to lay a trap,” Sherlock said. He seemed to be in one of those irritating moods where he was on the same thinking path as the Doctor. “I think he’s following a plan that wasn’t made by him. It had to have been started by Moriarty. He couldn’t have known about Os, but he could have planned to do it with someone else. Harry. Mrs. Hudson. Molly. I don’t think it was finished, and I don’t think the Final Problem was part of it. Moriarty planned a getaway, a burner mobile, but the rest of this revenge scheme is too sloppy. It’s not clever. He said no games. He doesn’t want to beat me; he just wants to punish me.”

And the best way to do that is to punish John, added the Doctor silently. “He can’t be done yet. He’s lying low until he can make his escape. He could have one more move left in him.”

“Then I don’t have to tell you what to do.” Sherlock hung up.

Much to his displeasure, the Doctor hailed a cab and took off for the address. His spirits were low, understandably. He mourned the loss of another Clara Oswin Oswald, even though he hadn’t known her this time. He was still late. And there was nothing at the cause of it but basic human depravity. He always fought so hard because of the goodness in the human race. Time and again humans proved to be as brilliant as he wanted them to be. But he was always at a loss at what to do in the face of the ugliness inherent in human nature. This man, Sebastian Moran, was a villain the Doctor was unaccustomed to. He hoped he could find a way to win anyway.

It was an abandoned warehouse. Of course it was. In the middle of nowhere. Of course it was. The Doctor carefully worked his way through the front part, noting only an air mattress in one room and otherwise no other furnishings to speak of.

The warehouse’s sole occupant sat in a chair in a corner of a room. He picked at his fingernails with a knife identical to the one Sherlock had.

He sighed. “Perhaps I’m not as good at this as I thought. You must be the phone thief,” Sebastian Moran said.

In that moment the Doctor wasn’t entirely sure he had thought through how this meeting was going to go. He had spent too much time thinking about John’s Os. He could apprehend him? He didn’t see how that could go down. “You caught me. Are you going to turn me in?”

“I might have a couple of more interesting ideas than turning you over to the police. What’s your name?”

“Clara Oswin Oswald.”

“Small world. I killed someone today with that name.”

“It’s the only name you need to concern yourself with.”

“There are a couple names I’m concerned about. James Moriarty. Sherlock Holmes. John Watson. We know about those. I’m particularly interested in this new player. Arthur Conan Doyle. How he seems to know so much about the players at hand and how he’s about to make life a living hell for John Watson.”

“How does Doyle know about Moriarty?”

Moran smiled. “Your guess is as good as mine. But we both know some pretty brilliant people who wouldn’t let a simple thing like time and space stand in their way. Doctor.”

“Moriarty couldn’t.” The Doctor frowned. He surely would have known if Moriarty had contact with anyone who could travel. The TARDIS could have picked up on it.

“Moriarty could do anything. He was everywhere. He was everything.” Moran stood up and approached the Doctor. “Nowhere in the plan did it include suicide. The plan said to leave John Watson alone if Sherlock took the fall, but nowhere in the plan did it stipulate a gunshot wound to Moriarty’s head. So we learn to deviate from the plan.  The plan said not to harm him. Never said anything about psychological wounds though.”

The Doctor stepped away from Moran as he spoke. He had a thousand more questions to ask Moran but he still had to formulate his plan. He put his hand in his pocket and dialed a number, hoping that without seeing he could still get somebody useful on the line.

Behind the Doctor a mobile phone began to ring. The Doctor turned around and Moran looked up and a shot rang out. Moran collapsed onto the floor. John Watson walked forward and shot him again for good measure. The Doctor wanted to shout at him. All of the answers were gone. No resolution could be made. The Doctor had most of the puzzle completed, but John just flushed seven pieces of it down the toilet.

The echoes still reverberated through the abandoned warehouse. John exhaled slowly, for a long time. He couldn’t be sure he made the right move. But answers never gave him closure. He didn’t really believe closure could exist. And he sure as hell didn’t care about consequences at that very moment. He had made up his mind as soon as the Doctor left Baker Street. An eye for an eye. Completely barbaric. But it almost gave him closure. He did what he could to Moriarty’s representative because Moriarty had always been untouchable.

“John,” said Sherlock, who stood at the doorway behind John. He spoke lightly, not with shock or condemnation. Just an announcement of his presence.

John paused, his stomach in knots. He thought he might have imagined it. If he turned around, then he would know it was real. He couldn’t turn around.

\----


End file.
